Waiting is the Hardest Part
by Freaya
Summary: Marshall is in surgery after being shot. Mary is afraid she may lose her best friend


In honor of tonight's re-watch I re-watched early so I could pen a post-ep missing scene. Takes place a few hours after the end of the episode. Enjoy!

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Title: Waiting is the hardest part.

Author: Astrilde

Pairings/Characters: Mary/ Marshall Friendship

Rating: PG (may have used the word crap or similar)

Summary: Mary waits for Marshall to wake up after surgery.

Disclaimer: In case anyone didn't realize I don't own any rights to the show or its characters. Just borrowing them and will return them mostly as I found them.

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She felt trapped. Jinx and Brandi had just arrived and were already sapping what little mental strength she could summon. Couldn't they see her energies were needed elsewhere? Well, for once they would have to accept that right now they were not the focus of her attention. Right now she needed to be Mary the US Marshal whose partner was in surgery, not big sister Mary. At the best of times she fought a losing battle to keep these two sides of her life separate. Nonetheless, she was not in this entirely without support. On the opposite side of the room Stan was interrogating both the medical trauma attending who had admitted Marshal in the first place and a passing Theatre nurse. Even now it made her smile. As ever, when it really counted he was being a rock, letting her pace without question. He trusted that if she thought sitting down would help then she would, if a warm drink would help then she would pour it herself and if tears were comforting then she would cry and maybe just use his shoulder as a prop..

Mary knew precisely why she was handling this so badly. All morning she had been a total bitch to Marshall, letting out her anger and willfully believing what she knew in her heart could not be - that he was considering another job. It brought fresh tears to realize that despite her behavior, when things had gone sideways he had come up fighting. Despite having been shot himself he had saved her life. The thought of it all made her feel sick.

They were had been restless closeted in the surgical waiting room for over four hours now. Despite Stan's best efforts they were still waiting for the surgeon to come bearing good news, or bad. No. Mary ground her teeth; it had better damn well be good news. Stan may have already collected all the weapons which had been fired that day and left her temporarily unarmed but that did not mean she couldn't put an end to any hapless medic's career with her bare hands if he dared to come bearing bad news.

After two hours of pacing, drinking bad coffee and resisting the urge to destroy the snack machine a man finally appeared along the surgical corridor. He was short, bald and dressed in blue scrubs. Most importantly of all he was headed in their direction. The moment they saw him a collective four-fold breath was held.

"Family of Marshall Mann?" he asked as he entered the room.

"Yes." Stan stood, displaying the badge on his belt.

He seemed to sense that Brandi and Jinx's story would only slow down the surgeon's report..

Mary was actually silent. As much as she wanted to grab the little man by his prominent ears and demand a simple 'yes' or 'no' she suspected his type would need to pre-amble first. He looked at Mary and could clearly sense how tense she was. Surprisingly the medic made eye contact and reassured her wordlessly that the news was good. Things would be okay. Mary sat with everyone else at his request, but still relaxed only slightly.

The surgeon was not a young man and had been doing this for many years. He prided himself not only on his skill within the theatre but also his ability to read the family dynamic in the recovery room. Knowing his patient was law enforcement he quickly picked up and focused his words on the two no-nonsense fellow officers who had placed themselves closest to him.

"Mr. Mann is stable and resting comfortably in recovery. He will be moved to the ICU shortly". The medic smiled as Mary and Stan let out the breath they had been holding, the older man rubbing his hands over his face in relief. "The considerable delay in reaching medical help did complicate matters somewhat but it was nothing we couldn't handle. We will be treating Mr. Mann with antibiotics as a precaution against infection, given the contamination of the wound. He seems like a tough guy and should make a good recovery and be back doing whatever it is you guys do in no time flat."

Mary felt great relief at those words. The surgeon likely had no idea what transpired earlier that day nor how strong Marshall had been even when the situation looked very grim. Regardless of her best efforts the relief was still tainted with the fear that he would not return to work at all., She had told him he could not leave but would he, after today's events? The surgeon spoke again, derailing Mary's thoughts.

"I was hoping someone could tell me more about the assistance given in the field. It almost certainly bought him the time needed to survive" It didn't take much skill to tell the anxious woman who looked like she had just run a marathon had been with the patient during the shooting.

"Hey don't look at me!" Mary held her hands up innocently. "I just did as I was told and hoped for the best."

Stan and the surgeon simply looked at her, their eyes asking wordlessly for more details.

"My nerd of a partner has obviously been watching way too much ER and before we abandoned the car he had me pull the windscreen wash hose from under the hood saying we might need it later. In the gas station he started spouting Latin and told me to 'stick the tube in the hole' before passing out. I did and air started hissing out of the tube and he came around again. Then he puts the end of the tube into a bottle of water and explained how it all worked." She waved her hands around as she tried to explain the event which had happened so fast, even she wouldn't have expected Marshall's encyclopedic knowledge to extend to emergency trauma medicine.

Stan didn't seem to be terribly shocked at the news his inspector was able to tell his partner what to do to save his life. He was not in the least bit surprised he had gone on to explain how it worked while doing so. The surgeon however, not knowing Marshall was quite stunned at the information. His patient had been sedated before seeing him and he hadn't actually spoken to the man yet. It is sometimes said that surgeons choose surgery so that they don't have to talk with their patients much, but this one he was quite looking forward to meeting properly.

"He was correct." The surgeon began to explain. "He had air which escaped from his lung into the chest space. That air was making it hard to breath and by giving it an escape route you allowed his lungs to re-inflate which made breathing much easier. It bought the time needed to get medical help".

"It was a damn good job he knew, I had already had to resuscitate him once and don't know how long he would have held out for otherwise" Mary looked over to Stan who was quietly proud of his two 'best' albeit insubordinate subordinates. "Does this mean I am going to stop picking on him for being such a know-it-all?"

Stan smiled now he could see that Mary was becoming a little calmer "I don't think you will let a little thing like that stop you" he paused, "for long."

"Anyway," the surgeon continued, "you should go home and get some rest. It's late and Mr Mann will be out for a while" he stood and his hand was taken warmly by a very grateful Stan. Mary also stood and thanked the medic. She also however insisted she would stay.

"He's going to be okay." Stan rested a hand on her shoulder.

"I know that," she tapped on her temple, "up here. I won't know it here till I see him though." she was pointing to her heart now.

Stan nodded his understanding. He had suspected something was bothering Mary and Marshall before they set out that morning. It wasn't terribly uncommon for them to fight like siblings but it was just bad luck it meant Marshall got shot whilst they were arguing, leaving Mary feeling even worse as she waited for news.

"Could you see that my mom and sister get home?" Mary was tired.

"I will speak with the staff and try and talk them into letting you stay," he looked as her silently asking her not to make them regret anything, "and then I will take them home".

"Thank you." Her tone was filled with a genuine gratitude for all the support he had given that day; first in the field when he had offered to let her follow Marshall to the hospital and then again while expecting news in the waiting room.

Mary approached her family as Stan went to speak with the staff. They looked confused, out of place here amongst her 'work family' and seeing her actively hurting over Marshall's injury. They knew Mary as fixer of things, not the one who needed support and was getting it from her other family. Right now she needed to be away from everyone whilst she got herself back together, everyone except Marshall. A few minutes later Stan returned with a nurse.

"I'll take you to Mr. Mann now." She said and Mary left.

Turning to the confused outsiders Stan spoke.

"Mary has asked me to take you both home. There is nothing you can do here. I had to sweet talk the surgical nurse into letting Mary stay. Luckily they tend to go easy on law enforcement." With that they left. Stan would return in the morning with coffee and food for Mary.

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The nurse led Mary up to the surgical ICU where Marshall had been moved. She was instructed to remove her coat and was handed an unflattering paper over gown to wear. She then washed her hands with antibacterial soap. It stung in all the tiny cuts she had accumulated on her hands but not as much as the things she had said to Marshall, things she wished she could take back. She wondered if she was being selfish. She wanted to apologize but didn't know whether doing so was for him or for her. A paper hat was handed to her. Luckily she remembered Stan's silent request she not make the hospital staff regret bending the rules for them and put it on without complaint.

Having reached an acceptable level of cleanliness the nurse lead Mary into the unit and over to the glass cubicle which housed her friend. At least she hoped he would still be her friend after the events of today. The nurse was explaining all the tubes and machines that were beeping around them but Mary couldn't pull her gaze from Marshall lying on the bed. He looked better than she had seen him all evening, he had been cleaned and patched up and there was a large dressing over where he had been hit.

A clean tube was indicated by the nurse, "We can expect the chest tube to be removed in two to three days." The nurse repeated, sensing that Mary's attention was elsewhere. "After that we will have him moving around and so long as there are no signs of infection we should be able to release him."

"Thank you." Mary was still not looking at the nurse.

She pulled the chair over to the bedside so she could sit with him. She reached for his hand but stopped; concerned that she might displace some important medical device. The nurse sensed the hesitation and looked amused.

"It's okay to touch, there isn't any sensitive equipment on him and we have remote monitoring on everything so you will be left in peace. Just call me if you need anything."

Mary couldn't answer in words as she gently picked up Marshall's hand and held it in hers. She could only nod for the nurse whilst looking in the other way. She was on the brink of crying, blaming herself for all this. Speaking would have tipped her over the edge into tears.

She spent hours just going over the day, time and again; how angry she had been when she had read his job offer and how treacherous she had been afterwards. Alone now, her tears began to escape her control and she allowed them to fall. Why didn't she just have the guts to ask? She could stare down four gunmen alone with just a hostage for bargaining but she couldn't ask the person who was supposed to be her best friend a simple question. How screwed up was that? She couldn't blame him for any of his snide responses as half of the argument he hadn't even known what was bothering her. Thinking rationally about it, she shouldn't have read his mail. She'd be pissed if someone did it to her.

She must have spent two or three hours lost in her own thoughts, going through in her mind how she could apologize to him for her behavior. She wasn't very experienced at asking forgiveness and wouldn't usually bother. Today was different. Today she had genuinely faced the possibility that Marshall would leave, either for the private sector or the afterlife and that scared her. It scared her she had allowed herself to depend on one person to the point that losing them would break her. However, she had also comprehend that somehow this was different, Marshall was different and that she too had to become different if she wanted to be the kind of person that didn't eventually drive everyone in her life away. She wasn't going to become Mother Teresa overnight, or ever. She could try to be a better friend. The first step was to realize she wasn't doing it now.

The nurse came in to run some checks which couldn't be done remotely. She commented to Mary that the sedation was beginning to wear off and it shouldn't be too much longer. Mary however was frankly having trouble staying awake. Each blink of her eyes grew longer and longer until they all kind of joined together and she fell asleep in the chair, still holding Marshalls hand in hers.


End file.
